Current Projects

2017 Open Education Advocacy and Research Fellow

This year I have been selected by BCcampus for an open education fellowship. Throughout the year, I will be attending conferences and universities, promoting and carrying out research into the use of open educational resources and practices. I'm honoured to work with fellow open education advocates Jennifer Barker, George Veletsianos, and Rajiv Jhangiani.

Masters in Learning and Technology

I hold a Masters degree in Learning and Technology (MALaT) from Royal Roads University. My focus was on using educational technology to enhance the education of adult learners, both in class, or online. I have always been interested in studies gauging the efficacy of using social media in the classroom, and in the effects of social relationships, online and in-person on learning outcomes and opportunities.

Transmedia in education: Building the story of your course across multiple media platforms

At the Fall 2014 ETUG 'Unconference', held at the BCIT Downtown Campus, I co-presented a session with fellow educator and educational technologist, John Born. In an informal information and sharing session, we discussed the benefits of breaking out of the traditional 'lecture' format, and engaging students using different modes of media and technology. More than just multi-media, transmedia represents not just audio and video, but many other formats as well, including games, quizzes, and interactive content. While the challenges in implementing this type of resource can be daunting, it is also possible to start small, and build up over time. We discussed how it is important not just to implement 'cool technology' without consideration of the pedagogy, and highlighted these five important considerations: Engagement, interactivity, creativity, self-mediation, and autonomy. The hour-long session flew by, and participants took part in some excellent discussion!

At the spring ETUG workshop, held June 12, 2014 at Langara College, BC, I presented a session featuring my research into the use of social media in the classroom. I shared results that came from analyzing dozens of different studies, as well as experiences that I had discovered first hand in trying

social media strategies for myself. One of my favourite parts of the session was being able to open the floor to questions from this packed room of educators, administrators and learning experts, and hear their own experiences with social media (both good and challenging) and how they are dealing with this exciting development in education.

How can social media help engage 21st century learners in a project-based classroom?

I presented a breakout session in February at the Midwest Education Technology Conference from February 10-12. Using my currentresearch into the efficacy of social media in education as a springboard, this breakout session was focused on sharing real-world successes (and failures!) in implementing social media in the classroom. At the conclusion of the session, participants were teamed up, and encouraged to share thoughts, apprehensions, and experiences with the group via Twitter.

"As social media tools such as Twitter become more ubiquitous, opportunities exist for teachers to encourage student learning through the use of web 2.0 technologies. Using examples from his project-based graphic arts classroom, Ken will share his experiences in implementing connected learning, and will discuss how we can make room for the social aspects of constructive education."

The slides and other interesting links from the session are available here.
This topic is aligned with the research I am completing for my MA, a qualitative meta-synthesis of the use of social media in education.

Photo by Nick McKeever

"Flipping the Classroom" PD session

In January 2014 I participated as a panel member in a PD event for faculty at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) called "Flipping the Classroom", sharing my experiences with using video instruction as a compliment to face-to-face instruction.

I always welcome the opportunity to speak about connected classrooms, social media, digital citizenship, and web 2.0 technologies. If you have any ideas or questions, I'm always up for a chat! I can be found on twitter @kenjeffery, or by email.

iPad digital content creation for the GTEC program at BCIT

I was recently involved in creating multimedia learning assets for the Graphic Communication Technology program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. This was done to support the doctoral research of fellow faculty member Lisa O'Neill. The students of our program are all using iPads in the classroom, and instructors will be using the new content as learning assets for their face-to-face courses. Last year's report of the iPad rollout can be found at the GTEC blog here. For example, we filmed a segment teaching plate mounting and register on a flexographic printing press, followed by a segment on how to set up the three-knife trimmer on a saddle stitcher. These videos will be part of the learning modules used by teaching faculty in the January term.